Bradley J. Fikes notes in comments to another post that the shares in Tribune Company, the company that owns the L.A. Times, have taken such a beating recently that the company is considered “takeover bait” by many analysts.

Interesting.

[Said in an extremely fast voice: No investment advice is implied. Patterico is not a stockbroker. Patterico does not own stock in Tribune and does not plan to. He doesn’t even like their newspapers. Haven’t you read this blog? Invest responsibly.]

First read this: Christopher Hitchens’ attack on Juan Cole. Then read this: Juan Cole’s response, calling Hitchens a drunk and saying (repeatedly): “One, two, three, four! We don’t want your stinking war!” (H/t A.L.)

Then read iowahawk. And laugh, and laugh.

If you know anyone in the L.A. area who is interested in one or more cats, please e-mail me at patterico AT patterico DOT com, or leave a comment below.

UPDATE: Eric Wilner points out in the comments that I was being too optimistic about what day of the week it is. Dagnabbit.

Yes, we have too many people coming across the border into this country. Is it wishful thinking to hope that this could cause a few to move across the border in the other direction?

UPDATE: I just heard on the radio that the bill won’t be signed.

I predict death.

UPDATE: I was wrong.

UPDATE x2: Via Howard Bashman comes a link to the jurors’ verdict form. Pay special attention to page 9, where the jurors wrote in an additional mitigating factor that apparently had not been proffered by Moussaoui’s lawyers (who must be feeling both chagrined, and relieved that the jurors filled in this gap in their argument):

That Zacarius [sic] Moussaoui had limited knowledge of the 9/11 attack plans.

Three jurors subscribed to that view. That was obviously a critical factor.

I’m trying to wind down my posts about Michael Hiltzik. But I note that Cathy Seipp has also heard the rumor floated by Nikki Finke that Hiltzik will be reassigned to “sports investigations.” It’s still a rumor, of course, but I find rumors to be more credible coming from Cathy than from Finke.

One of Cathy’s commenters has this tongue-in-cheek speculation about Hiltzik’s first assignment.

In all seriousness, I wish Mr. Hiltzik good luck at his next assignment, whatever it is.

By the way, Cathy also notes (as did Kevin Roderick the other day) editor Baquet’s befuddlement that the crowd at the book fair didn’t seem to understand why Hiltzik had lost his column:

The Hiltzik affair may be a hot media story, but one that probably leaves average Times subscribers scratching their heads. “I think our readers representative said that maybe 20 people wrote in about Hiltzik,” Baquet said, adding that a lot of readers may be awfully confused by what happened to Hiltzik’s business section column, which was cancelled late Friday afternoon.

You mean readers don’t all read the little Editor’s Notes they publish in a small box on Page A2?

As commenter Bradley J. Fikes said in a comment at Cathy’s blog:

Going way out on a limb here, but that confusion just might be related to the Times’ nearly non-existent coverage of the issue.

Fikes has been saying that the paper ought to publish Baquet’s explanation for the reassignment, as explained to Roderick the other day: that he couldn’t have a business columnist unable to credibly write about duplicity. Perhaps they could publish some variant of this passage from an internal staff memo, which didn’t make it into the Editor’s Note about Hiltzik:

A columnist has a special place within The Times. Editors, colleagues and, most of all, readers must trust the integrity and judgment of a columnist because of the freedom that comes with the job. Mike often used his column to pillory business leaders for duplicity or violating the trust of employees, shareholders or the public and we are no longer comfortable granting him that special place within our newspaper.

Mr. Baquet, wouldn’t publishing this explanation be better than leaving your readers “awfully confused” about the reasons things are happening at your newspaper?